Israel announced Thursday that its military had destroyed a major underground Hezbollah tunnel network beneath the Ali al Taher ridge in southern Lebanon, an operation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said completed the establishment of a full security zone in the area. The Israeli military said it used more than 1,100 tons of explosives to bring down the complex, producing a blast powerful enough to register as a magnitude 4.1 seismic event roughly 13 kilometers from the Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh. Videos circulating online, apparently filmed from nearby Israeli held positions, showed a massive plume rising from the ridge as the demolition unfolded. With the tunnels destroyed, Netanyahu and Katz said Israeli forces now hold operational control of the ridge both above and below ground.

Officials described the network as a strategic facility built over roughly two decades with Iranian funding and planning, extending more than two kilometers underground and including a central command complex tied to Hezbollah's Badr Unit. Inside, Israeli troops reported finding command rooms, weapons storage areas, generators, living quarters, showers and even a kitchen, features that allowed Hezbollah operatives to remain underground and continue combat operations for extended stretches of time. The site also reportedly contained dozens of Iranian made rockets, missiles and drones, along with machine guns, anti tank missiles, and hundreds of mines and explosive devices. Israeli officials said the ridge's elevated position had given Hezbollah direct observation and fire control over the northern Israeli towns of Metulla and Kiryat Shmona, and was intended to serve as a staging area for a potential push into Israel's Galilee region.

The operation capped a months long, multi phase effort by Israeli engineering, Yahalom and commando units to first map and clear the ridge's surface positions before tackling the far more complex task of locating tunnels hidden beneath dense vegetation and rock. Netanyahu had already declared the ridge cleared of active threats in a statement earlier this month, but Thursday's demolition marked the definitive destruction of the underground infrastructure itself, with Israeli troops now expected to remain in place to prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding. During a visit to Jerusalem's Western Wall, Netanyahu tied the operation to Israel's broader posture toward Iran, saying Tehran was again attempting to rebuild its nuclear weapons capability despite past Israeli strikes on its program.

Defense Minister Katz used the moment to issue a pointed warning to both Hezbollah and its Iranian backers, saying any Iranian attack on Israel would remove all restraints on Israel's response and that Israel would strike infrastructure across Iran, including energy facilities, without hesitation. Officials framed the language as a direct message that any Hezbollah attempt at retaliation for the ridge's destruction would be met with what they called a powerful response. Hezbollah, for its part, has publicly denied losing control of the position, while Iran has issued its own threats of direct retaliation over the operation, a sign of how closely Tehran continues to track developments on the ridge even as it has largely avoided striking Israel directly in recent months. With tensions already elevated ahead of the Jewish new year, the destruction of Ali al Taher's tunnels adds another flashpoint to an already volatile standoff across Israel's northern border.